This weekend’s Weezer tribute will raise money for breast cancer research and treatment

Awesome event alert: in support of Yards Brewery’s annual Pynk charity ale, a bunch of players from the Philly DIY scene are getting together to cover Weezer this Friday beginning at 7:30 at the Philly beer company’s Delaware Avenue tasting room. The program features classic records Pinkerton (get it?) and The Blue Album – which is great news for fans who are on the fence about going to the recently-announced “we’re-playing-our-new-album-in-its-entirety” Trocadero show later this month; this Friday’s homespun gig will have all the fan favorite cuts that you really want to hear (but likely won’t) from the band itself. Continue reading →

Summing up an entire region’s music scene in an hour-ish long compilation is pretty much impossible. But dangit, we try our best. I’m very psyched for the roster of artists we’ve lined up on The Key Studio Sessions Volume 10, out today as a free download you can grab below. Pop-punk wave makers Modern Baseball did a version of “The Weekend” from their 2012 debut LP Sports, and the mini XPN shoutout they deliver at the end of the first chorus might be my favorite moment of the set. Continue reading →

Premiered on Decoder Magazine, I IM EYE MY‘s new track “Streetcat Bonfire” is a sonic exploration through an urban jungle from Al Creedon (Bleeding Rainbow) and Sean Hamilton (Spacin’). The name alone calls to mind people gathered on the street around a scrap fire set in a metal trashcan, and that image is carried on through the opening percussive bars. As the song continues it feels almost out of place in this current time, fitting more closely with the aesthetics and expressions surrounding avant garde jazz, though it gets there via a modern, droney route. Imagine Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew and GHQ’s Crystal Healing were meshed together – “Streetcat Bonfire” is what you would hear. The song will be included on an upcoming tape called 7 Transmissions, which will be released on Not Not Fun. Take a listen to “Streetcat Bonfire” below.

Today is the 7th annual Record Store Day. It’s a day to celebrate music, specifically the independent record stores that sell it and the exclusive vinyl selections by hundreds of bands being released as an incentive to get music fans into the stores.

Before you head out, check out our guide to what’s happening locally at various record stores around the Philadelphia area.

Below, listen to some of the offerings for the day including Bleeding Rainbow’s cover of the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Glynis,” Bardo Pond’s cover of Brian Eno’s “Here Comes The Warm Jets,” Django Django’s cover of The Monkees’ “Porpoise Song,” and a demo of “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden.

Bleeding Rainbow stopped by for this week’s Key Studio Session in support of their new record Interrupt. As Key editor John Vettese writes, “[it’s] not their easiest to listen to – at turns it can be raw, biting, forlorn, enraged and rarely poppy – but it’s undoubtedly the truest to where the band is at artistically…” and these live tracks capture all of those emotions and personalities.

Philadelphia musician Abi Reimold released her new EP Forget. The name-your-own-price effort is reminiscent of both PJ Harvey and Angel Olsen, with Reimold plunging into the depths of heartbreaking lyrics and dream-like vignettes. Stream and download “Morning” below and get the full EP here.

Boston psych-rock outfit Quilt returned to the XPN studios for the first repeat session in Folkadelphia history. On the heels of releasing their sophomore record Held in Splendor, the trio. along with a touring bassist, recorded a three-song set of expansive and comforting new songs. Take a listen and download below. Revisit the band’s first session here.

Revolution, I Love You, a pop-tinged rock band out of Philadelphia, released their new EP The Atlantic Ocean. The duo looked to many different genres for inspiration, saying the EP “is influenced as much by The Replacements, Bruce Springsteen, and Big Star as they are by the electronica and hip hop artists whose influence was so prevalent on Revolution, I Love You’s earlier recordings.” Stream and download it below.

This week on Unlocked, The Key dug into Creepoid‘s new self-titled LP. We were introduced to the record on Monday with a free download of “Baptism,” described as having “a spiraling riff that drags you through the mire down to the water.” Stream and download it below and check out the rest of the week-long feature here.

Upper Darby art-punk outfit mewithoutYou appears at Union Transfer tonight with post-hardcore group Touche Amore. mewithoutYou released their latest album, Ten Stories, in May of 2012. The 11-song album combines lead singer Aaron Weiss’ famously creative puns and plays on lyricism to construct a story plot as complicated as the guitar riffs and other instrumentation that make up the tunes. The songs tells the survival tales of a fox, elephant, bear and onion boy (hint: bonus track) – or more specifically, the circus animals and acts involved in a fictional train crash in 1878. Hear the band tell the creative story tonight. The show starts at 7 p.m. and tickets are $19 at the door.

Philly’s Bleeding Rainbow make the music of survival. I mean that in a few ways, the first being a sheer reflection of their sound. The torrent of interlocking guitars – founding member Rob Garcia chugging away in your one speaker alongside feedback-wrangler Al Creedon in your other – driven forth by the propulsive drums of Ashley Arnwine and the aggressive bass of Sarah Everton. The music is a shield, a defensive noise-punk barrier build to guard not only the vocal ruminations of Everton and Garcia, but to protect the hard-working hard-touring Philly four-piece in general.

It’s also about survival from the perspective of struggling artists, frustrated wage-earners, deeply thoughtful creatives who are endlessly pigeonholed – as fellow Philly writer Elliott Sharp observed, it must be frustrating to have Pitchfork determine your band’s narrative. It’s the survival of the women in the band who face marginalization and sexist dismissiveness in day-to-day life, and unfortunately in their music lives as well – people, Arnwine is simply an asskicking drummer, and to qualify it any other way (“actually” “surprisingly”) is the most heinous of backhanded compliments.

This is a band that gets buzzed up and knocked down by the music intelligentsia and perseveres; it’s a band which, when I saw it perform at Golden Tea House in January, flipped a hellish series of technical / PA / microphone mishaps into a transcendent and cathartic set of meditative, Glenn Branca-ish drone. It’s taken the band years of growth to get to this point, pushing through roadblocks that may have derailed others. You hear it in its ever-expanding sound – compare the raging and powerful “White Nose” as they play it below for this week’s Key Studio Session to the first time they played it for us in 2010, when they were a two-piece and still called Reading Rainbow.

Bleeding Rainbow plays Golden Tea again this Saturday to celebrate the release of the new Interrupt, its new album out this week on Kanine Records. It’s not their easiest to listen to – at turns it can be raw, biting, forlorn, enraged and rarely poppy – but it’s undoubtedly the truest to where the band is at artistically, what they’ve experienced as musicians and as people, and what it’s taken for them to get through the time, noise to combat the noise, a catharsis for emotions and situations that are at once deeply personal and specific and yet oddly universal. Stream and download the Key Studio Session the band recorded for us below, and get more information on the album release show here.

Photo by Chad Yanagisawa Philly’s Bleeding Rainbow release its new album, Interrupt, next Tuesday, February 25th. You can stream the record in its entirety over at Pitchfork Advance. The punk rockers – Sarah Everton, Rob Garcia, Al Creedon, and Ashley Arnwine – made the record right here in Philly at Fancy Time Studios last June and celebrate the release of their new album on Saturday, March 1st at the Golden Tea House. Below, listen to “Tell Me” from the new album.

About The Key

Philadelphia: Home to a rich musical history, a unique musical identity, and one of the nation's most thriving musical communities. In a scene filled with so many local bands worth listening to, there will always be new music to discover—and The Key is your source for finding it. Brought to you by WXPN—the non-commercial public radio station that World Cafe, XPN2, and XPoNential Music Festival call home—The Key covers all local music in Greater Philly and beyond.GET IN TOUCH

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About The Key

Philadelphia: Home to a rich musical history, a unique musical identity, and one of the nation's most thriving musical communities. In a scene filled with so many local bands worth listening to, there will always be new music to discover—and The Key is your source for finding it. Brought to you by WXPN—the non-commercial public radio station that World Cafe, XPN2, and XPoNential Music Festival call home—The Key covers all local music in Greater Philly and beyond.GET IN TOUCH